


Everything But This

by Trelkez



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trelkez/pseuds/Trelkez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jerakeen: "We’re gonna need a Matrix moment where Stiles kisses Derek and sparks up the alpha in him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything But This

**Author's Note:**

> ... and then I wrote Stiles as Trinity. Follows a specific scene in the movie. You know the one.

The door is starting to splinter inwards. A few more solid hits will bust through the last illusion of protection Stiles has, and the ogres must realize it, too: they start shouting in excitement, impatient and gleeful and  _hungry_. 

Fuck, no. Stiles is not getting eaten by ogres,  _fuck no_ , that is not how he’s going out. 

"Come on, Derek," he hisses, pressing down harder. His shaking hands are holding Derek together, are _all_  that’s holding Derek together. Derek’s werewolf healing could kick in, oh, any time now. Any time at all. “Could really use your help right now.” 

Deaton stops pacing the perimeter of the room, stops laying down handfuls of mountain ash and rock salt and things they both know will be useless in the end. He crouches down next to Stiles, cupping a hand to Derek’s forehead, then pressing his fingers to Derek’s neck. 

"Stiles—"

"I’ve seen him come back from worse," Stiles says, ignoring the fact that Derek isn’t breathing, hasn’t been since he hit the ground. Deaton shakes his head, reaching out toward Stiles. Stiles flinches back, gritting his teeth. "No, come on, he’s been torn apart and dropped from heights and—" There’s a particularly loud crack of wood. The door holds, but the ogres are screaming now, almost deafeningly loud, even through the walls.

"He was an alpha then," Deaton says, so perfectly calm that Stiles only panics more, because fuck, oh fuck, they’re going to die. That is not the voice of a guy who sees an exit route. "Alphas can heal from things that betas can’t."

A laugh bubbles up out of Stiles. He never thought he’d want Derek to be an alpha. He definitely never thought he’d  _need_  Derek to be an alpha, but he does, he needs it, he needs Derek to heal. He needs it more than anything, not just so that Derek can save them, but also — also because he needs to see Derek get up. He needs Derek _not to die_. 

There’s a secret Stiles has been keeping, something he’s left unsaid for months now, a warm ache in his chest that springs to life whenever Derek is around. The ache wasn’t there before Derek left, and it wasn’t there for a while after he came back, but now it’s constant, only worsening over time, and if Derek dies—

If Derek dies, that might be just as painful as getting eaten by ogres. Maybe. There’s a very good chance Stiles is going to find out. 

"But he was an alpha before, that should count for something, right?" The door creaks ominously. Stiles shoots an urgent look at Deaton, his hands sliding around in Derek’s blood. "Right?"

"I don’t know," Deaton says.

The ogres are still pounding on the door, but all Stiles can hear is a strange ringing in his ears. “You don’t know?”

"I’ve never seen an alpha fall to beta before, Stiles," Deaton says, sitting back and letting out a long, slow sigh. "Not like this. I’ve heard stories, but — I don’t know exactly how it works. I don’t know if there’s a residual spark left, or if it’s all gone. I’m sorry."

_I’m sorry you’re about to get killed and eaten_ , he means. 

No. Not happening.

"Derek." Stiles brings one slippery hand up from Derek’s stomach, giving his face a wet-sounding slap. "Derek,  _come on_.” This has worked before. This is what they do, right, Stiles smacking Derek back to life, it’s their thing. “Derek!”

The door shatters open. 

Derek has to wake up. Derek  _has to wake up_. Stiles thinks he might be screaming it at Derek,  _wake up, wake up,_  his throat raw with it, and the ogres are — are—

—Are confused. 

The line is holding. Stiles doesn’t know if it’s the mountain ash or the salt or the — is that holly?  _Something_  is keeping the ogres back. They’ve fallen silent, staring into the small, cramped room with hungry, glowing eyes. 

Stiles exhales shakily. 

One of the ogres puts a hand up to the invisible barrier, pushing against it, testing. For a moment nothing happens, and then the barrier starts to visibly ripple. There’s only room in the doorway for one ogre, but Stiles can tell one ogre is going to be enough; the barrier won’t hold. 

"Okay," he says, clutching at Derek. "Now is the time, man. You’re going to wake up and heal, because I am _not_  going to die as food.” 

"Believe it," Deaton says.

Stiles spreads his hands over Derek’s stomach, struggling to breathe. “What, like — I can heal him by believing he’ll heal?”

"No." Deaton is staring fixedly at the ogre. The ogre is staring back, teeth bared. "That residual spark—" The one that might not be there? "Believe in it. Believe it can come back. If you pour your belief into it, you may be able to reignite it."

"That sounds like bullshit," Stiles says, even as he flattens one hand over Derek’s wounds, bringing another up to his cheek. Believe it. Believe there’s some hidden alpha in there somewhere that Stiles can bring back. Yeah, right. "Okay, I — okay." He closes his eyes, trying to concentrate.  The ogres immediately start roaring again, trying to disrupt his focus, he’s sure they are. Assholes. "I can do this." 

He can’t do this. This is ridiculous. They’re going to die.

“ _Believe it_ ,” Deaton says again, more frantic than encouraging. 

Stiles tunes him out, tunes the ogres out, everything. He focuses on the blood-sticky warmth of Derek under his hands, on Derek, on that hypothetical spark of something more inside of him. He  _has_  to believe that spark is there, because it’s that or game over.

He does. He does believe it. He believes the potential is there, waiting, that all the inherited power of the Hale pack didn’t simply disappear. He pictures it in his mind, visualizing it as the last ember on the fire, and pours his belief into it,  stronger and stronger. 

"Come on," he whispers, barely audible to himself under the roar of the ogres. "Come on, I know you can, I believe it." He believes that Derek is going to heal. He believes that Derek is going to get up and save them. 

"Stiles," Deaton says, softer, resigned. 

"You aren’t dead," Stiles insists, shaking Derek a little, his eyes still squeezed shut. "You’ll be fine, if you would just freaking _listen to me_.” He forces his eyes open, looks down at Derek. “You can’t be dead, because I don’t want to die, and because I—” He breathes in, breathes out, not quite willing to say it out loud, because if Derek is dead — if Derek isn’t going to wake up—

No. This is never going to work if he thinks like that. 

"I love you," he says, voice clear and sure. "I  _fucking love you_ ,” words crumbling into desperation now, shaking apart. “Come on,  _please_.” He ducks his head, pressing his lips to Derek’s, believing in that spark of power like he’s never believed in anything. 

Something is pulling at him, drawing him down: something other than physical, hooked into the core of him and pulling, pulling, and it hurts, oh,  _god_ , it hurts. 

Derek draws a ragged breath, chest expanding. Stiles lifts his head just in time to see Derek open his eyes, red leeching in from the edges. The wounds on his stomach are closing already, knitting together under Stiles’ fingers. 

"Now  _get up_ ,” Stiles says, just as the ogre bursts through the barrier, scattering holly and ash in its wake. 

The world tilts and goes dark. Stiles misses the thrilling conclusion entirely. Typical.

*

He wakes up in the loft, on Derek’s couch. Someone has put a blanket over him and it feels like an iron weight, pinning him down.

"Off," he mumbles into the couch cushion. "Off, off — Derek."

"Hey," Derek says, crouching down next to the couch. "How do you feel?"

"Alive." He’s alive. That hasn’t fully sunk in yet, so his  _holy shit I’m alive_  freak-out is currently postponed. “Heavy.”

"Residual effect of what you did," Derek says, knuckles skimming the back of Stiles’ hand. Derek is a lot more casual with his touches than he used to be, so maybe it isn’t weird for him to be touching Stiles now. They _did_  almost die. “Deaton says it’ll pass.”

"Still not entirely sure  _what_  I did,” Stiles admits. “Did I — show me your eyes.”

Derek’s eyes light up a bright, electric blue. 

"It was temporary." Derek shrugs, like briefly becoming an alpha again is no big deal. "I drained my power healing Cora, and you recharged it with yours, for a while. It didn’t last long."

"Long enough," Stiles says. He isn’t ogre chow, that’s long enough. "Is that what Deaton said, about the recharging? Did he say if we could make it permanent?"

Derek hesitates, loosely curling his fingers around Stiles’ wrist. They’re almost holding hands now. It’s officially weird.

"He isn’t sure."

Stiles squints at Derek, trying to read between the lines. “Do you want it to be permanent? Being an alpha again, is that what you—”

"I don’t know," Derek says, his grip on Stiles tightening, then easing again. "It doesn’t matter." Those are two very different answers. "Sit up, you need to drink some water."

Stiles lets Derek push him into a sitting position, lets Derek feed him bottled water in small sips. He keeps his eyes on Derek, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Did Derek hear what he said? Derek was mostly dead at the time, there was no way he could have — did Deaton tell him? Deaton must have told him something.

"It doesn’t matter," Derek says again, shaking his head. "You aren’t going to do that again. Ever."

"Funny, that doesn’t  _sound_  like ‘thank you for saving my life, Stiles.’” 

"You could have died. You get that, right?" Derek taps a finger against his chest, hard enough to hurt. "You didn’t know what the hell you were doing, and you let me drain you like a battery for five minutes of power. You could have  _died_.”

"Uh, yeah, I got that part, what with the ogres beating down the door." Stiles glares at Derek. "I didn’t have a choice.  _You_  get  _that_ , right?”

"Fine," Derek says, shutting Stiles up with another sip of water. "But it doesn’t happen again."

"Whatever," Stiles says, dismissing it as an argument for another time. "You’re welcome."

Derek looks down, takes a deep breath, and slowly looks up again, eyebrows drawing together.

"Thank you," he says.

Stiles wasn’t expecting that.

"I — yeah," he says, flustered. "Sure. You’re welcome." He means it, this time, because he thinks Derek means it too, strange as that is. 

"Deaton said," here it comes, "he said it wouldn’t have worked if you didn’t believe absolutely. In the alpha power."

"In you," Stiles says, guessing where this is headed. Derek twitches and looks uncomfortable, so Stiles tries to dial it back a little. "I absolutely believed you were going to get up and kick some ogre ass. You did, right?"

Derek half-smiles. “Not exactly. I—” He looks slightly embarrassed. “I punched through the wall.”

"Of course you did," Stiles says, unable to keep the raw affection out of his voice. "Five minutes of alpha status, and this is what you do with it."

"It worked," Derek points out. "We escaped."

"I guess we did," Stiles says, the reality of it starting to settle in. The  _holy shit_ he expected isn’t there yet; he feels oddly calm about it all, maybe because Derek is touching his wrist again, grounding him. Stiles turns his hand over, linking their fingers. Derek lets him. “Is this — I’m not sure what we’re doing here.”

Derek squeezes his hand, then leans in slowly, cautiously, giving Stiles time to move away. They kiss softly, lips meeting and parting and meeting again, until Stiles touches a hand to Derek’s cheek and has a sudden sense memory of blood on his fingers, of Derek still beneath his hands. 

He doesn’t realize he’s pulled away until he hits the back of the couch, hand curled into a tight fist at his side. 

"Sorry," he says, face heating up even as he struggles to keep his breathing even. "I just—" He forces out a sigh. "Bad memory."

Derek studies him for a moment, then nods, leaning in again to kiss him on the forehead before standing. It’s — sweet. Stiles can’t help but smile up at him, hoping Derek knows that Stiles is going to tease him mercilessly about all the sweetness later, when he’s had enough of it to take it for granted. If he gets there, if this becomes a thing. 

Is it a thing? Does  _I believe in you absolutely_  translate into _and now we’re dating_ in Derekspeak?

He thinks it might. He thinks it might not even matter that Derek was mostly dead when Stiles said — what he said, because Stiles believed in Derek enough to bring him back and light him up.

"I’m going to call Scott and let him know you’re awake," Derek says, grabbing his phone. "He’s out hunting ogres."

"Tell him I said hi. And," Stiles gestures loosely, "not to get eaten."

Derek smiles at him, close-lipped and hesitant but there, real and warm.  

Stiles rubs a hand over his chest, trying to dull the ache. 


End file.
